Vladimir Romanov
Vladimir Romanov, referred to as Carnivore, or by his false name Vladimir Karnov, is a Russian royal. History Early History Vladimir Romanov was born as a Russian royal to one of the survivors of the execution of the Russian royal family (who had successfully gone into hiding). Vladimir's family were taken in by fellow royals from the European royals, also known as the Kingdom of Land. After Vladimir was born, he grew up hidden from the public and was given the false identity to live by, Vladimir Karnov. He eventually became a member of the Kingdom of Land that included his Russian homeland, as part of the ancient group known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms. Because of his membership in the Four Kingdoms, Vladimir was taught about the true history of mankind, as well as learning of the five trials set by super-ancient beings to test humanity. Being a royal, Vladimir was also allowed to access his family's talisman, one of the six Pillars, the Fifth, of the Machine. At some point, Vladimir chose to return to his home nation under his alias and joined the KGB, finding it amusing that the organisation he worked for was unknowingly employing a member of the royal family their predecessors had once tried to wipe out. Vladimir rose through the ranks of the KGB, and was given the call-sign Carnivore. After the KGB was dissolved and replaced by the FSB, Carnivore transferred over. At some point during his career, Carnivore may have been involved in the assassination of several Russian journalists hiding out in foreign countries by subjecting them to radiation poisoning. At some stage he also obtained a Tupolev-144 for his private use. Following the death of his predecessor, Carnivore was granted the title of King of Land due to being the next in line of succession. He soon became friends with the Governor of the Royal Prison of Erebus, Yago DeSaxe. After seeing how the Four Kingdoms' enemies were imprisoned upon the Wall of Misery in liquid stone, Carnivore was inspired to create his own method of imprisonment as equally horrific. Soon he created tanks of specialised formaldehyde he called Living Tombs, in which prisoners were held securely and were tortured by the fact that they were fully conscious and could do nothing but watch the world go by. Carnivore would use his Living Tombs to keep his unknowing subjects in the Russian government happy by imprisoning not only his own enemies, but their political prisoners and dissenters, and came to refer to them as his living trophies. After he met Mordechai Muniz of the Israeli Mossad, Carnivore taught him his method of creating Living Tombs, and he and Muniz began a friendly contest of imprisoning people to see who had the more impressive collection. Under unknown circumstances, Carnivore was severely injured when the left side of his jaw was gouged open. Carnivore was forced to resort to having a steel plate implanted, however, the surgery was botched and the plate left exposed, which caused him severe pain. In time, however, Carnivore came to accept the pain, believing that his ability to endure it every day would prove a sign of his fortitude. Before The Five Greatest Warriors During the late 20th century and early 21st century, Carnivore began making plans to restore the Machine so that he could claim one of the Pillars' rewards, and so recruited several promising experts of their individual fields to assist him in his endeavor, such as Diane Cassidy. He also worked very closely with his British cousin, Iolanthe Compton-Jones, on attempting to relocate the components of the Machine that had become lost over the millennia, but as he was the current King of Land, she was subordinate to him on the project. Despite her family's belief that Carnivore's goals would benefit all of the royal families in the Kingdom of Land, Iolanthe knew that Carnivore was only working to the benefit of himself. In 2002, Cassidy's research led to her discover that the fabled Neetha tribe in Africa might have knowledge pertaining to their quest, and so Carnivore funded an expedition for her to find the Neetha. Cassidy and her party went missing, however, and so Carnivore assumed that they had all perished. Because the Kingdom of Land already had its agents in the Catholic Church working on restoring the Golden Capstone to mitigate the effects of the Tartarus sunspot, Carnivore chose to let the Church operate on its own, preferring that his involvement not be known. Instead, he watched from afar as the American Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force and Coalition of Minnows clashed, following the conflict with great interest. Carnivore took particular interest in Jack West Jr, recognising him as a determined man who could be beneficial or detrimental to his own plans if he was not careful. After the Tartarus Rotation occurred in 2006, Carnivore decided to retire from the FSB to focus his full attention of restoring the Machine. In September 2007, Australian Intelligence discovered that Carnivore had been mentioned during an encrypted phone call, where a partial decryption had noted "before Carnivore gets involved". Jack was debriefed on Carnivore at Pine Gap, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was a new player and who he was working with. Prior to the beginning of the Machine-restoration project in December of 2007, Carnivore had Iolanthe inserted into CIEF-Chinese-Saudi alliance so that she could find out what they knew and, if possible, take the opportunity to procure the Pillars for Carnivore. After Wolf's CIEF and Mao Gongli's Chinese forces made their play for the Firestone in Jack's possession, Carnivore decided to make his first move, and had his agent in the Irish military, Cieran Kincaid, reveal the location of the second Oracle of Siwa, Alexander. Once he had the location, Carnivore sent some of his people to kidnap the boy and brought to him. Though the exact circumstances are unclear, it appears the Russian royal offered Alexander a position of power in exchange for his help in translating the Thoth written on the Twin Tablets of Thuthmosis for the final ceremony at the final Vertex. Over the next few weeks, Carnivore proceeded to watch the initial skirmishes between the alliance and the Coalition of Minnows team through his spy network rather than get involved, knowing that his rivals' efforts would benefit him best once they had taken care of most of the work. However, he did take the opportunity to grab Shiek Anzar al Abbas when he was en-route to Saudi Arabia, and had him imprisoned in one of his Living Tomb tanks. The Five Greatest Warriors Shortly after the laying of the second Pillar, Cassidy got in contact with Carnivore, revealing that she was not dead as presumed, but had been imprisoned by the Neetha and freed by members of the Coalition team. Carnivore suggested that she use the opportunity to get close to the Coalition team and help their efforts in locating the remaining Machine components while also relaying their progress to him. Continuing to monitor the progress of the Machine's restoration from his satellites and through Cassidy, Carnivore also noted the liberation of the Coalition member Stretch from Muniz's collection by his friends and the increase of unusual weather patterns around the globe. After watching Vulture and Scimitar kidnap Lois and Alby Calvin, Carnivore used his influence to have a pair of MiG fighters intercept the Arabians' plane and force them to divert to his dam. Upon receiving them, he had the Calvin's imprisoned in his Living Tombs and had the Arabians shackled. Around the time that the CIEF and Jack were working to place the third Pillar, Carnivore decided that it was time for him to step in. In addition to having Mao Gongli and Paul Robertson captured and imprisoned in his base, Carnivore also had the former's lover and son imprisoned in his Living Tombs as well. Once the time for the third Pillar's placement had passed, Carnivore had some Russian forces loyal to him move in on Hokkaido to capture the Pillar-laying people, including Wolf, Jack, Rapier, Zoe, Astro, Lily and Yanis, as well as Sky Monster and Tank on the Halicarnassus. In addition to taking the Firestone, the Philosopher's Stone and third Pillar from Wolf's team, Carnivore also took possession of the Twin Tablets from Jack's plane. After using the cleansing Stones to cleanse his fifth Pillar, Carnivore sent the Firestone to Iolanthe in Britain so that she could use it and the Basin of Rameses II to give her fourth Pillar its second cleansing once she had secured the Coalition team members there. Once Jack finally woke up, he was brought before Carnivore, who was pleased to finally meet the man who had interested him for the past few years, and after introducing himself led Jack to where his other prisoners were. Once Iolanthe established contact via video-chat, Carnivore announced to everyone his intention to coerce them into working for him in finishing the Machine's restoration and provide him with all of the Pillars. After killing Tank and the unwilling Robertson, Carnviore laid out his plan; Pooh Bear's team in England would lay the fourth Pillar in exchange for Abbas's release, Vulture, Scimitar and Mao would locate the tomb of Jesus Christ and the Pillar hidden in it to free Mao's family, and for either Jack or Wolf to accompany Lily to Diego Garcia to lay the fifth Pillar with Iolanthe. However, unwilling to risk both Jack Wests being loose, Carnivore offered the chance for one of them to continue the mission, with Jack and Rapier to fight to the death to determine which he would use. After watching with sadistic amusement as Jack killed Rapier in the torturous arena of his dam, Carnivore had Wolf contact the base at Diego Garcia to force them to allow Iolanthe and his people there to operate, before having Wolf, Yanis (out of interest of keeping the Neethan as a unique specimen) and the injured Zoe and Astro imprisoned in Living Tombs. Upon watching Jack pledge to return for Zoe, Carnivore took pleasure in breaking Jack's heart by revealing she had betrayed his love for her by sleeping with another man (Kincaid), and despite Jack's threat to the royal, Carnivore was delighted by the display of raw anger that the Huntsman was known for. As he saw his reluctant workers off, Carnivore revealed to the questioning Jack that he was prepared to risk Lily's life by sending her with him since he already had Alexander. After confirming that the fourth and fifth Pillars had been laid, Carnivore reneged on his promise to release his hostages and instead prepared to abandon his base and the prisoners in his Living Tombs. After informing them that they would likely perish from lack of oxygen after a few days, Carnivore permitted Cassidy to take her vengeance on Yanis by turning the Neethan's oxygen off, before having all of his notes and equipment loaded onto plane and departing. After receiving word from his guards watching Mao's group that Mao had claimed the Pillar, Carnivore quickly realised Mao had fallen for the fake Pillar, but luckily Kincaid had tricked Pooh Bear's team into bringing him along to the salt-mine containing Jesus's tomb and given Carnivore their location. By the time Jack and the others emerged with the real sixth Pillar, Carnivore was waiting for them with Kincaid, Cassidy, Alexander and the unconscious Sky Monster, Julius and Lachlan. After taking the Pillar, Iolanthe reported the deaths of Vulture and Scimitar at Pooh Bear's hands (to Carnivore's surprise), and Carnivore considered what to do with Jack and his allies. Though Iolanthe suggested that Jack could be of use to them, Carnivore was unwilling to take the risk that he would come after them since they would be taking Lily with them to the final Vertex at Easter Island in case something happened to Alexander, and agreed to let Kincaid execute them. As he turned back to his plane, Jack began fighting with Kincaid, and Carnivore ordered his people onto the plane and to have the Halicarnassus disabled to prevent pursuit, successfully departing with the pieces he needed for the final ceremony. As he made his way to Easter Island's Vertex, Carnivore had the Pillar cleansed, and soon proceeded with his guards, Cassidy, Iolanthe, Lily and Alexander into the submerged entrance with scuba gear, and made their way through the Vertex's trap system. Upon making it to the balcony, Carnivore arranged the Pillars and Sacred Stones he had on nearby altars and awaited the Dual Equinox to place the sixth Pillar. As the time neared, Carnivore was initially surprised when Jack arrived within the Vertex by crashing the Halicarnassus into the entrance, but was certain the Australian would have no time to stop him. However, Jack managed to send the Halicarnassus racing over the spikes to the balcony, and for once Carnivore was completely caught off-guard by this unexpected act. Having his men surround the plane, Carnivore called for Jack not to do anything foolish since he was far outnumbered, but Jack tricked Carnivore's men into firing at the wrong place and aimed the plane's gun turret at the Russian royal. Conceding that Jack had beaten him with his last breath, Carnivore and his men were pelted with gunfire and killed. After Death Because Carnivore had had no offspring, the next in the Kingdom of Land's line of succession was Sphinx's father. However, due to his timid nature and not desiring such a demanding role, he abdicated the title of King to his younger brother. This new King would only reign for the next month before dying of a heart attack, resulting in his son, Orlando Compton-Jones, being granted the title of King of Land. (The Secret Cities) Jack would later deduce Carnivore's position as Orlando's predecessor after being brought to the Underworld, and casually remarked that he had killed him to the new King of Land as a show of defiance. (The Four Legendary Kingdoms) As he prepared to have Jack entrapped in the Wall of Misery at Erebus, Yago reflected on the time he had spent with Carnivore and how he missed the friend whose qualities he'd admired. (The Secret Cities) Personality The Carnivore is an intelligent and horrifying foe, one who knows that information is powerful when used tactfully. The fact that he takes the pain from his jaw injury in his stride shows just how resilient and gruesome he allows himself to be. And being that he collects human beings and stores them in tanks, he is clearly one without mercy. He commands and expects loyalty from his relatives in the quest to restore the Machine, but only has his own selfish interests at his black heart. Trivia *Carnivore (having a disfigurement or odd feature like some of Reilly's other villains) has a steel jaw implant on his left side, which was incorrectly placed and causes him great pain (though he takes it as a test of fortitude). What happened to him is never mentioned. **With the revelation that he was the King of Land for a period, one must wonder why Carnivore subjected himself to a risky surgery in Russia rather than use his resources to procure better circumstances for himself, though perhaps time may have been of the essence. Category:Characters Category:Russian Characters Category:Russian Soldiers Category:Huntsman Characters Category:Royals Category:The Five Greatest Warriors Category:Deceased Characters Category:Antagonists Category:Four Legendary Kingdoms Members